TechNote

Workarounds for issues with LiveCycle 7.x solutions used with Reader and Acrobat 8.0 and 8.1 clients

Issue

Adobe has recently identified some issues that may arise when Adobe LiveCycle version 7.x or earlier is used to design and render forms that are viewed with the newest versions of Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat 8.0 and 8.1 clients. An FAQ has been published that describes this situation further at: www.adobe.com/go/kb402410.

End users may experience one or more of the following:

After entering data into a form and saving it, the user encounters problems upon reopening the saved form “ saved data is lost.
The user experiences problems with drop-down lists (or choices), radio buttons, and/or check boxes where, during form interactions, the selected item is œforgotten or behaves as though there is no selected value.

Reason

Workarounds

A few workarounds have been identified and used to resolve a number of these issues. These workarounds and are detailed in this TechNote for consideration.

Thorough client-server testing of these workarounds is recommended to assess the final application behavior in advance of any deployment into a production environment. For additional inquiry, please contact Adobe support through your normal channels or visit www.adobe.com/support/.

In some cases these issues are due to a new rendering method called direct rendering (AGM), and disabling AGM has resolved a number of these issues.

It is recommended that you test one or more of the following workarounds to determine whether disabling AGM resolves the issue.

Disable Direct Rendering (AGM) on a per form basis

Using LiveCycle Designer, add the following processing instruction to the template definition to disable direct rendering method on a per form basis:

<?originalXFAVersion http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-template/2.1/ LegacyRendering:1?>

Disable Direct Rendering (AGM) on the client environment via the Windows registry

For situations where Acrobat and Reader clients are used under a controlled environment or network, direct rendering (AGM) can also be enabled or disabled by adding a new key and value to the Windows registry.

Disclaimer: The registry contains system-related information that is critical to your computer and applications. Before modifying the registry, be sure to make a backup copy of it. Adobe doesn't provide support for problems that arise from improperly modifying the registry. Adobe strongly recommends that you have experience editing system files before you modify the registry. For information on the Windows Registry Editor, see Windows documentation or contact Microsoft Technical Support.

To disable AGM, edit the Windows registry as follows:

Launch the Registry Editor:
- On Windows 2000 and XP, choose Start > Run. Type regedit in the Open text box and click OK.
- On Windows Vista, choose Start. Type msconfig in the Search text box, and press Enter.
In the Registry Editor dialog box, navigate to the following location:
- For Adobe Reader clients: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\8.0\
- For Acrobat Standard or Professional clients: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\8.0\
Choose Edit > New > Key. Type AVPrivate for the name, and click Enter.
With this new AVPrivate key highlighted, choose Edit > New > DWord Value. Type bForceXFADirectRender for the name, and click Enter.